John Grant: TAS In Session

John Grant's personal struggles have fueled, not foiled, his artistic output. A recovering drug addict and alcoholic who, newly sober, then faced an HIV-positive diagnosis, Grant discovered that honesty about those predicaments freed him creatively.

For his powerful second solo album, Pale Green Ghosts, Grant relocated to Iceland, delving into the electronic music that defined his adolescence. He's bringing his love of lush synths and ornery moods on the road, touring North America this month and coming to New York's Mercury Lounge on July 1 (go here to win tickets from The Alternate Side).

Listen to a compelling TAS session with John Grant on TAS on 91.5 WNYE this Friday, June 21, at 11 a.m. ET, also streaming online.

UPDATE: Listen to the John Grant session now in the FUV/TAS archives.

Watch videos of Grant's performance in Studio A below (backed by his Icelandic bandmates) and read highlights of his candid conversation with The Alternate Side's Russ Borris:

Russ Borris: I absolutely love this record. It’s a tremendous piece of work and clearly a very personal record. One thing that stands out to me, the synths on this album, is that they have a way of being both cool and dance-y but invoking dramatic feelings too. A balance and not something you necessarily always get. What drew you to that sound?

John Grant: This album is sort of rooted in my adolescence which took place during the 80s so the music I loved the most during that time was all the synth stuff. The New Romantic stuff, the New Wave stuff and all of the industrial stuff. It started out with maybe the first couple of Eurythmics albums, back in the beginning of the ‘80s, and the first couple of Devo albums. Missing Persons’ [debut] Spring Session M, stuff like that.

Russ: Missing Persons gets lost in that mix.

John: You know, they had one of the greatest drummers ever [Terry Bozzio] in that band. The stuff that they do on that album is, to this day, is amazing. There’s some really crazy cool time signatures, sounds and performances on that record. It continues to be one of my favorites throughout the years. The more of the New Wave-y stuff, like Fad Gadget, Cabaret Voltaire, Visage, Pet Shop Boys — this is the stuff I was listening to constantly. All this electro and dance stuff. Then I got into Ministry, Skinny Puppy and Front Line Assembly. At the same time I was still taking my classical piano lessons so I’ve always had a strange mixture. I grew up with two older brothers who were listening to Nazareth, Molly Hatchet, Kiss, Van Halen and Aerosmith and there was a lot of that ‘70s AOR rock in there: Bread and Supertramp. My parents were listening to Olivia Newton-John, John Denver, Roger Miller and Loretta Lynn. So I have a wide range of things to choose from.

When it came to doing this album, I always wanted to bring the synth stuff into it and also diistill all of these things I love into one whole, hopefully. I think it’s an ongoing process for me. I wouldn’t say that I’ve achieved that perfectly on this album, but I think that I’m on the road to getting my sound right — or getting the sound that I want — and bringing all of these elements together.

You mentioned the cinematic qualities of the sound mixed with the synths, and it’s not an easy thing to do. I make a lot of mistakes. But I chose to work with Biggi Veira from the band GusGus on this album because I knew that he’d be able to help me find the sounds that I wanted to find. He’s also a master at creating suspense and tension which is so important with electronic music. It keeps it from being cold, which is something that people say is their problem with electronic music. I think you can also use things in a very classical and cinematic way to create dramatic and warm atmosphere as well.

[video:http://youtu.be/1K98pS3ZLHs]

Russ: You fronted a band called The Czars for while. I feel like now, you have your voice in a different way on this record. How long did it take you to get to that place?

John: It’s taken a long time. I guess it’s taken 15 years. It was a process of me getting out of my own way. When I started out, the coolest thing to my mind was Radiohead, so I thought that’s what I needed to be like. I had all these ideas of how I wanted to be perceived. It took me a long time — I keep using this word — to distill. To strip off all of the layers of my inner censors, my own filters, how I wanted to be perceived and to simpy realize that the best thing I could possiby do was be myself. That was more than enough for my music. I think that’s what you’re hearing on this record; I feel like I’m getting much closer to being able to just “be” as opposed to worrying about perceived in a specific way. It’s very important in the studio to completely ignore any voices that tell me that I need to worry about what other people are going to think about what I’m saying, the sounds we’re creating or the mixture of sounds we’re using. I do worry about it sometimes, but when I go into the studio, it’s really important to me to completely ignore that. I think I have done a good job of ignoring those voices and making sure that I’m doing what I want to do.

Russ: That can get exhausting, [taking into account] what the fans or critics are thinking.

John: You can’t. It leads nowhere and the bottom line is that there are going to be people who love your music and there will be people who are going to hate your music. There will people who will be like, “Meh, I don’t care.” That’s none of your business. You’re not doing the music to please people or worry about who is going to like it. You’ve got to make a record that you feel is what you meant to do, so when you go to bed at night, you say “I made the record that I wanted to make.” Maybe it’s not perfect or it didn’t achieve what I set out to do yet, but I’m on the road to doing that. I can sleep well knowing that I stayed true to my vision. There’s a lot of things on this record that I don’t necessarily want to say in public, but when it comes down to where I was when I was writing the song and what was going on with me, I felt that it was important to me — someone who is in recovery from addiction — I need to deal with the facts and the way things are. I spent a lot of my life trying to avoid facing myself, so it’s really important for me to be in the moment and look at things, even if they’re ugly and they don’t sound nice. That doesn’t matter. That’s the way it was at that moment, and it’s all right. It’s not like I’m alone in this.

Russ: Do you remember the lowest point when you were dealing with addiction?

John: I do. I remember a lot f low points. I remember going to the doctor — I was trying to get into the hospital to do an alcohol treatment program. One of the nurses that day talked to me about [if] I could give up drinking. It got to the point that I was beginning to fantasize about suicide a lot. I was thinking … I was starting to really think that was a good idea for me. That was the lowest point for me. When I really decided I needed to quit and I needed to get help … I think when you lose perspective to that extent and you think it’s a good idea for you, you really need to get some outside help. And I did. I think that’s one thing that’s good about me; I was never too ashamed to say that I needed help. So, here I am.

[video:http://youtu.be/8pNzc8xBWuE]

Russ: There’s a rejuvenation you can hear in the music as well. One of the things that I think works so well is the humor that you’re able to interject in a song like “GMF.” Dark humor, but it works so well … and thanks for cleaning that up for the radio! Where does the dark humor come from with you?

John: I think it started with me with Woody Allen. I’ve always been a huge fan of his, especially the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s Woody Allen. It started there and continued in modern times with people like Todd Solondz [and his movies] “Welcome to the Dollhouse” and “Happiness.” It’s always been my defense mechanism in this world, humor. Especially dark humor. I wouldn’t want to be without it. I was a little afraid when I got sober … I thought that being a coke addict and being addicted to booze made me more interesting. I might have thought that because I was worried when I gave that all up, maybe I’d be too happy. I wouldn’t be able to write music or have my dark sense of humor anymore. Luckily, it hasn’t gone away and I still enjoy many of the things I always enjoyed. Bottom line was that it was always a defense mechanism but it’s also inextricable from my personality.

I struggled with being gay and coming out in my adolescence. That’s something that I express a lot on this album. I go into detail in this album about what it was like to get sober and to be infected by HIV after making all the effort to face myself, get sober and deciding that — and this is gonna sound corny — you’re going to show up for your own life. Take part in your life and realize that you’re someone who is deserving of love and able to give love, no more and no less than anyone else. That was a very difficult place for me to get to. I talk about these difficulties on the album and I think it’s very important to do that. I feel like it’s a universal thing. People don’t necessarily have my struggles. It’s not necessarily about sexuality with someone else, but people connect to the fact that you’re talking about real life. That resonates, even if they can’t identify with your specifics.

Russ: You talk about learning about your HIV … how did that throw you?

John: Well, it was a big smackdown. The difficult part of it was the psychological part and understanding what it meant. I was really angry with myself for allowing it to happen. I put myself in a situation where I didn’t have anyone else to blame but myself afterwards. After getting sober, deciding that I wanted to enjoy life and do as much as I could with my life, I realized that I was holding onto a lot of self-destructive behaviors in other areas, like sex. I had to admit to myself that I’d been using sex in a very similar way to the way I’d been using drugs and alcohol. I didn’t want to admit it and keep the sex for myself because I enjoy it and it’s a natural part of being a human. You can get away with that one a little more. Then I ended up getting HIV because I didn’t want to look at the self-destructive behaviors that I was still holding onto. It forced me to go to the next level. There are a lot of people who have been dealing with HIV for a long time. People who have been very, very responsible. Or a country like Africa where HIV is an epidemic and children are born with the disease. They didn’t have the opportunity to make the stupid choices that I made. So I had to think about those things.

I didn’t tell my family for a long time because I wanted to think about why I got there … and how I was going to continue on with that. I couldn’t ignore that. I still had a long way to go, as far as becoming a healthy … a healthy human. It was a really dark moment, but there are a lot of people who have gone through it and dealt with it. I had friends who were on their deathbed in the ‘80s and ‘90s when things weren’t so advanced, and you can live with it. It’s something that you can live a full life with. Now it’s not just about me anymore, it’s about making sure that I’m thinking about other people. I was so wrapped up in my own self-hatred and old patterns that I learned when I was growing up that I didn’t realize that the nasty thing that happens, all of these self-destructive things splash out into other people’s lives too. It gave me a lot to think about.